Syria sanctioned, condemned for "brutality"
(Reuters)

Reuters - Syria faces growing economic sanctions and condemnation over what the United Nations calls "gross human rights violations," but President Bashar al-Assad shows no sign of buckling under pressure to end his military crackdown on popular unrest.

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The U.S. is engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts with allies to increase the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to negotiate an end to the civil war entering its fifth year, Secretary of State John Kerry said.
Asked in an interview with CBS News if he would negotiate with Assad — whom then-Senator Kerry visited in Damascus six months before the violent crackdown — Kerry said “we have to negotiate in the end,” to achieve a post-Assad government as envisioned under a 2012 international agreement.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian authorities on Monday released a prominent human rights activist who spent more than three years in prison for reporting on the government's crackdown on protesters in the early days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, activists said.

Paris (AFP) - Russia faced mounting calls Thursday to explain its intentions in the Syrian conflict as European diplomats met after Germany's leader said President Bashar al-Assad should be involved in any peace talks.

Last week, after reading a Time article titled "Why Bashar Assad Won’t Fight ISIS" written by a journalist whose recent work includes "The YouTube War", and who sourced two unnamed, anonymous sources to reach the conclusion that Syria's president Assad is in cahoots with ISIS, we made a simple conclusion: "The Stage Is Set For The Syrian Invasion." Barely a week has

By Arshad MohammedJAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed the Assad government for stalling Syrian peace talks and pressed Russia to stop supplying it weapons, telling Moscow it needed to be part of the solution.International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said in Geneva on Saturday that the first two rounds of peace talks had not made much progress but that the two sides had agreed on an agenda for a third round at an unspecified date.

BEIRUT — A UN report on Syria said Tuesday there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals have been used as weapons in at least four attacks in Syria’s civil war, but that more evidence is needed to determine the precise chemical agents used or who used them.